Ken Griffin is doubling down on Miami as the billionaire CEO and founder of hedge fund Citadel and its sister company Citadel Securities revised plans to expand a proposed supertall office headquarters in the city’s financial district.
Griffin announced plans on Tuesday at the Milken Institute Global Conference in New York City to take the hotel component out of the tower and make it all office space. Citadel made public its initial plan in 2024 to build an over-1,000-foot-tall headquarters building at 1201 Brickell Bay Drive in Miami’s financial district with both offices and a hotel component proposed.
Site work is currently underway at the planned tower's location.
The $67 billion hedge fund relocated its headquarters from Chicago to Miami in 2022, settling in the Southeast Financial Center in downtown at first. The company then moved into 830 Brickell in 2024 when the trophy office tower opened.
During the New York conference, Griffin addressed a viral video posted by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani that singled out the executive’s $238 million penthouse in the Big Apple as a prime example of a proposed nonresident pied-a-terre tax.
“We went to Miami and revised our building plan to make it a bigger office building. … What the mayor of New York has made clear to my partners ... and my New York partners … is that we need to double down on our bet in Miami,” Griffin said.
He said that the New York mayor’s video demonstrated that the move to Miami was “unquestionably” the right choice. “When we moved from Chicago, there was a debate between New York and Miami. … Mamdani’s making it really clear, New York doesn’t welcome success,” Griffin said at the conference.
“We want to be in a state that embraces business, that embraces education, that embraces personal freedom and liberty, and that embraces people having an opportunity to live the American Dream."
Miami-Dade County’s building department has yet to upload the new plans, with the most recent documents available on the county’s website, added in January, still showing a hotel planned for the tower’s upper floors. A Commercial Observer report, citing a spokesperson for Citadel, stated that the firm’s development efforts at 1201 Brickell were focused “solely on commercial office space.”
“We want to be in a state that embraces business, that embraces education, that embraces personal freedom and liberty, and that embraces people having an opportunity to live the American Dream,” Griffin said.
The billionaire has become one of Miami’s and South Florida’s biggest boosters. In February, he partnered with New York and South Florida billionaire developer Stephen Ross to provide $10 million for a campaign from the Council of 100s — a pro-business nonprofit organization — meant to promote South Florida and recruit entrepreneurs and business owners to the region.
Market Commentary: The "Citadel Effect" on Industrial Demand
While the headlines are focused on Ken Griffin’s "all-in" bet on Brickell office space, the ripple effects are felt throughout the Miami-Dade industrial landscape. As global firms relocate their headquarters to the financial district, the demand for high-end logistics, cold storage, and distribution hubs in submarkets like Medley continues to climb.
View our latest deep dive on the Medley Industrial Market here: [https://youtu.be/tDrKzhEun2M]
